MOST/IGC/2022/013

August 2022
Original: English

NEW HORIZONS
IN DIGITAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
INNOVATION FOR
UNDERSTANDING
HUMANITY
Published in 2022 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), 7, Place de Fontenoy, 75007 Paris, France and Splashlight Holding, LLC, 75 Varick
Street, 3- FL. New York, NY 10013, USA.

© UNESCO 2022

The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply
the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any
country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or
boundaries.

The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors; they are not necessarily
those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization.

Graphic design: Regiane Pinheiro

Cover design: Regiane Pinheiro
Illustrations: Thiago Lobo

2
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3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report was made possible through the partnership between UNESCO and The LiiV Center, and under
the framework of the Management of Social Transformations program in the Social and Human Sciences
sector of UNESCO. On behalf of this partnership, we want to thank everyone who contributed to its realiza-
tion and express our gratitude to the extended community of academics who selflessly offered their time
and perspectives. It’s impossible to mention them all, but we appreciate every conversation about the cur-
rent state of digital anthropology and the future possibilities for innovation in the discipline.

Our acknowledgement goes first to the authors of this publication, Isabelle Cotton and Simon Darragh.
They brought equal parts knowledge and passion for the discipline to their research and assembled a co-
hesive global vision after navigating the nuances of myriad observations. We also extend our appreciation
to Shriram Venkatraman, Denise Camou, and Marguerite Coetzee, who produced the regional reports that
support this publication. Through their research, we get closer to each region’s rich and diverse reality and
the communities of practice that define them. All the authors have continued in different forms to support
the project, which we greatly appreciate.

All stages of this publication’s development were led by Juan Carmach and Katie Hillier, under Gabriela
Ramos’s and James Ingram’s strategic guidance.

From UNESCO, we value the contributions received from Mariagrazia Squicciarini, Magnus Magnusson,
Anneke Schmider, Pedro Monreal and the UNESCO publications board. We also thank the comments of the
LiiV Center teams through Sofía Frias, Elia Momponter, Susan Fiddian and Thomas Brodin.

Special thanks go to the peer reviewers for their insightful and detailed examination of the content of this
publication, namely Sydney Yeager, Inga Treitler, Vesna Kuralt, Cristina Cusenza and Ioana Tamas.

Finally, our thanks to Regiane Oliveira for bringing the report to life through graphic design, Son Vo-tuan
for helping to edit the publication, Patrick Bradley for his professional editing of the executive summary of
the publication, Michaela Bibby for proofreading the content, and Sara Rienda de la Mota for the final edits
of the report.

4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 8
INTRODUCTION 13
BUILDING THE GLOBAL REPORT 16
LANDSCAPE 18
THEMES 26
REGIONAL NUANCES 33
FORCES OF CHANGE 42
BARRIERS 46
FORESIGHT 50
STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS 55
CONCLUSION 57
GLOSSARY 58
CREDITS 59

LIST OF FIGURES
BUILDING THE GLOBAL REPORT 16
ABBREVIATED TIMELINE OF DIGITAL
INNOVATION IN ANTHROPOLOGY 19 - 20
LIMINAL INNOVATION SPACE 24
NON-EXHAUSTIVE VISUALISATION OF
ANTHROPOLOGY’S INTERSECTIONS 29
DEMONSTRATION OF THE INTRICATE WEB
OF INNOVATION WITHIN ANTHROPOLOGY 32
BUSINESS ANTHROPOLOGY 52

5
 FOREWORD UNESCO
Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director General
for Social and Human Sciences

Never have the opportunities and threats of the digital society been so great. Since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged
in 2020, an already fast digitalization trend has accelerated, fuelled by the use of artificial intelligence in many domains
in our societies and economies. Amid multiple crises, human communities and technology are reshaping each
other with unprecedented speed. Technology can bring out the best of our humanity to create empathetic, fair and
resilient societies - but it can also sow division, fear and confrontation. What some call digital disruption is actually an
anthropological transformation and demands deeper understanding to manage it better.

So far, the prevailing narrative dominating the digital transition underscores the need to be competitive and take
advantage of these technologies for productivity and growth. The competitive and geopolitical drive has somewhat
relegated a better understanding of the social and human impact of these technologies to an afterthought.

At UNESCO, we have contributed to correcting this view and forging a new understanding with the adoption in 2021
by our193 Member States of the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence - the first truly global normative
standard on the subject, putting people at the Center of the digital transformation. We have also done it through
our partnership with the LiiV Center to advance digital anthropology as a policy-relevant discipline to understand
humanity and address the social challenges of a digitised society, defined by intertwining technological and cultural
transformations. In this sense, as social networks, algorithms and immersive realities increasingly shape intimate and
collective human experiences, we turn to innovative social and human sciences to provide meaning and direction in
these turbulent times.

Our attention to digital anthropology is not accidental. It is founded on our longstanding recognition of cultural
diversity as a right and a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, extended to the digital expressions of culture,
values and beliefs. It is also a recognition that the solutions to our most pressing problems lie at the intersection of
technology and culture. Additionally, we recognize the need to protect the richness and diversity of existing cultures as
we move online from the homogenizing influences of a highly concentrated digital industry.

Thus, studying the relationship between culture and technology, anthropology is a gateway to sound policies, practices
and regulations. The concrete opportunities this discipline unlocks are multiple. First, by adopting an anthropological
view of technological development, we can shed light on the structures behind discrimination, inequalities, the
exploitation of cognitive biases and oppressive surveillance patterns - all sensitive issues for the proper functioning
and legitimacy of governments, the defence of human dignity and inclusive social development. Second, by processing
complex qualitative data, we can reveal insights into our citizens’ concerns and beliefs, improve our public information
and address misinformation campaigns targeting sensitive issues such as vaccines or climate change without
manipulations or breaches of privacy and data protection rights. Finally, through the structures and discourse of digital
relations, we can identify the formation of new digital communities, often invisible, and how certain communities fall into
echo-chambers and discriminatory behaviours to counter them.

Like other sciences and humanities, we must work to fully reach digital anthropology’s potential as a policy-relevant
domain. To do this, we must increase methodological innovations and the practice of digital anthropology to keep up
with rapid technological changes. We must transform this knowledge into innovative tools for sound regulation of the
digital space.

This publication – the first of its kind – lays the groundwork for understanding the current state of digital anthropology
as a discipline and in practice, consolidating multiple efforts to create a shared understanding. It also outlines the forces
that drive or hinder the development of this field and recommends clear steps to accelerate its growth. I hope that, as
UNESCO and the LiiV Center did, the reader can see the valuable contribution this discipline offers.

6
 FOREWORD LIIV CENTER
James Ingram, Founder of the LiiV Center for
Innovating Digital Anthropology

At a time when technology and the internet are changing what it means to be human, it’s crucial for society to
understand these changes, and empathize with the lives of people and communities today. Without this, we risk creating
social policies, services and solutions that perpetuate bias and inequality, and do not serve the public good in ethical
ways.

The LiiV Center was launched to serve this need through innovation in digital anthropology. For decision-makers
to holistically understand the communities they serve, they need more than quantitative and economic data -- they
need the deep human data rooted in anthropology. And in the contemporary context, this means innovations in digital
anthropology – that bring deep qualitative insight to the speed and scale of big data, and holistic human context to
numbers.

At the LiiV Center we are working to make this change by supporting the advancement of education, innovation in
technology, and the increased awareness of the value of digital anthropology across the public and private sector. We
believe in a future where digital anthropologists compliment Data Scientists as a critical career, with job opportunities
and innovative ethical technologies to support their work.

This is a bold vision for the future, which requires interdisciplinary collaboration and an international platform
for discourse and ideas on new technologies, methodologies, and academic programs. For our first major step, we
embarked in 2021 on a four-year partnership with UNESCO to advance digital anthropology. Because of UNESCO’s global
platform for change, and their commitment to the value of social human sciences as a driver for social good, we believe
that together we can make innovation in digital anthropology a force for good in the world and deliver meaningful
impact towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

This report serves as an early action step towards this vision. It’s an attempt to capture and synthesize advancements
in the current global landscape of digital innovations in anthropology tools, methods, and education, across academia
and the public and private sectors.

The field of anthropology is in a state of transition. There has never been a better time to regenerate and re-imagine
the value of (digital) anthropology as a force for good in society, and across the public and private sectors. Together we
will launch an open-access global digital anthropology toolkit, of innovative methods and training, for policy makers,
leaders, anthropologists, and other decision-makers to incorporate into their work. We then intend to bring this toolkit
into university classrooms, policy labs and the private sector for testing, to ensure it can drive the equitable and ethical
impact intended.

It’s time to bring deeper visibility into the people and communities in the digital age, so our algorithms, technologies
and social decisions reflect the needs of everyone, not just the privileged few. We invite you to read this report and join
us on our journey of innovation, experimentation, and social impact.

Let’s build this future together.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Digitisation, social networks, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse are changing what it means to be human. Humans
and technology are now in a dynamic and reciprocal relationship. However, while society has invested trillions in building
and tracking digital platforms and personal data, we’ve invested a shockingly small amount in understanding the values,
social dynamics, identities, and biases of digital communities.

We can’t address transformations in one without understanding the impacts on the other.

Handling growing global challenges such as the spread of misinformation, the rise of social and political polarisation,
the mental health crisis, the expansion of digital surveillance, and growing digital inequalities depends on our ability to
gain deeper insights into the relationship between people and digital technologies, and to see and understand people,
cultures and communities online.

The world depends heavily on economics and data science when it comes to understanding digital impacts, but these
sciences alone don’t tell the whole story. Economic models are built for scale but struggle with depth. Furthermore,
experience shows us that over-reliance on one-dimensional approaches magnifies social biases and ethical blind spots.

Digital Anthropology focuses on this intersection between technology and

humans, examining the quantitative and qualitative, using big data and thick
data, the virtual and real.

While innovation in digital anthropology has started, the field needs more investment and global awareness of its
unique and untapped potential to humanise decision-making for leaders across the public and private sectors.

This publication, developed in partnership between UNESCO and the LiiV Center, maps the landscape of innovation in
digital anthropology as an approach to ensure a better understanding of how human communities and societies interact
and are shaped by technologies and, knowing this, how policies can be rendered more ethical and inclusive.

Briefly, the research found that innovation in digital anthropology is in a state of transition and is perceived differently
across sectors and regions. In the span of just a couple of decades, innovation has come from doing anthropology
digitally and doing the digital anthropologically, two movements that give life to space where creation happens within the
blurry lines among disciplines, fuelled by increasingly fluid movement between academia and the private sector.

The innovation space in-between these trends seem to be where the most exciting and forward-thinking digital
innovations are occurring, like novel blended algorithms or computational and techno-anthropology, and opens
opportunities to educate a new breed of digitally and anthropologically skilled professionals.

8
Nine essential insights of the report

1
Anthropology is in a state of transition, in the process of a significant rebranding. Now,
anthropologists are increasingly opening up to a breadth of computational, data science, and virtual
ethnography tools that allow the discipline to begin to match the scale of the digital world. There is
also a growing need to answer questions posed by the digital world around the future of surveillance,
forms of expression, and identity, which anthropology has studied for years.

2
Regional and sectoral nuances, compounded by the influence of the digital divide and investment
disparity among nations and regions, affect how innovation in digital anthropology is perceived.
Moreover, regions whose private sectors have embraced anthropological methods as tools tend to
experience the highest levels of innovation. Also, the fragmentation of anthropological language and a
silo mentality in academic spaces generate different levels of innovation and hold back its potential.

3
Innovation is happening in the blurry intersectional space between anthropology and data
science. Innovators in this space are using complex digital tools (computational visualisation, artificial
intelligence, and other emerging technologies). They are also making a conscious effort not to lose the
“human intimacy” of ethnographic data when it is being collected or processed at scale. As a result,
there is a constant back-and-forth ingrained into the process.

4
There is a significant migration of anthropologists from Academia to the Private Sector. Private sector
labs are key players hiring anthropologists in the effort to humanise their practices. At the same time,
this space is populated by data scientists and quantitative researchers who have begun implementing
more anthropological thinking into their practice.

5 Anthropology innovates through collaborative efforts, including people and perspectives from
different academic or sector backgrounds. Also, through the lens of anthropology, data scientists can
communicate with natural historians, linguists with designers and filmmakers with sociologists.

6
Across the globe, using anthropology as a problem-solving tool drives digital innovation. One of the
best examples of this can be seen in academic and private sector collaborative initiatives and labs,
fundamental nexuses of digital innovation across almost all regions.

7
Innovation in anthropology is slowed down by the global digital divide and investment disparity.
In many regions, investment in innovative technologies lags far behind its human and economic
potential, and digital innovation in anthropology is far down the list of investment priorities in such
areas as this.

8
Digital innovation in anthropology is held back by perceptions of its negative cultural heritage.
Many academics and innovators consider anthropology an imposition. In addition, anthropology can
be dismissed as backward-thinking. The perception of intellectual flow remains one way: from north
to south and the west to the rest of the world. Thus, challenging cultural heritage remains a significant
barrier in the global adoption of anthropological methods.

9
 9
Digital innovation in anthropology is at the beginning of its journey. There are many possible
directions of digital innovation within the field, such as affective computing, business anthropology,
trend prediction, or citizen engagement. These are exciting domains to explore, specifically for
policymaking.

To enable digital innovation in anthropology, we need collaborative efforts from different stakeholders who
share desires for problem-solving. The report also highlights related barriers to advancing digital innovation in
anthropology, such as the global digital divide, investment disparity, and the negative cultural heritage of
the disciple. However, the good news is that digital innovation is still at the beginning of its developing journey.

This publication offers insightful new data that sheds light on emerging trends at a global level as well as
strategic analysis of opportunities for intervention based on the partnership’s academic, technical, and
awareness goals.

Recommendations

As a result of our research, this publication features directions of innovation in digital anthropology within
the field in three areas:

First, Academia has two lines of action: develop its own curriculum and strengthen the global academic
community. Developing a new open-sourced academic curriculum is critical, and it should focus on
interdisciplinarity, forging “a mixed methods” mindset, and looking for upskilling anthropologists, data scientists,
and policymakers. Researchers, experts, and practitioners should cluster around labs and think tanks to
empower the academic community and enhance cooperation. Furthermore, they should try to re-unite the
anthropological diaspora and create a shared vocabulary and open-access archives of anthropological innovation.

Second, developing open-sourced innovative and technological tools for anthropologists, data scientists (and
others) is required to unleash deeper insights into humanity. Increasing investment in research and technologies
developed by teams of anthropologists and data scientists and learning from collectives with a collaborative
mindset to build local or global communities are crucial steps toward accelerating technical improvement.

Finally, innovation in digital anthropology may benefit from more global awareness to drive attention
and demand across the public & private sectors. Practically, this means using locally targeted problem-
solving to spur digital innovation and translate learnings to the public sector. Conceptually, this would
imply challenging the negative cultural heritage, remaining conscious of the digital divide and working on
scalable bottom-up approaches that address local needs and make use of the digital tools available.

10
9 INSIGHTS YOU
SHOULD KNOW
ABOUT DIGITAL INNOVATION
IN ANTHROPOLOGY
(And where to find them in this report)

It is in a state of It is fuelled by
transition. collaborative efforts.
Learn more on pages Learn more on page 30
19, 20, 27, 31 and 32

It is perceived It is fuelled by
differently across problem-solving.
regions and sectors. Learn more on page 45
Learn more on pages 27
and 33-41

It is happening in
It is held back by the
the blurry space
between disciplines. global digital divide
Learn more on pages
and investment
23-24 disparity.
Learn more on page 47

It is fuelled by the It is held back by its

Academic to Private negative cultural
Sector Pipeline. heritage.
Learn more on page 48
Learn more on pages 25
and 44

It is at the beginning
of its journey.
Learn more on pages 50-56

11
112
2 12
INTRODUCTION
We are at a turning point, where are convinced of the need for a presents a landscape of the
global efforts need to be made global effort to bring more digital current state of digital innovation
to address universal problems innovation to anthropological in anthropology globally and
like mass misinformation, methodologies and tools in order offers a strategic analysis of
polarising echo-chambers to uncover deep human insights opportunities for intervention
and the precarious balance into global and local communities. based on the partnership’s
between care and surveillance. Doing so will enable a global academic, technical and
Anthropology holds a unique effort for more ethical and awareness goals. The report also
skillset to address these inclusive societies. This core belief outlines current macro themes
problems: it is holistic, reflexive forms the foundation of their of innovation in anthropology
and empathetic. Moreover, four-year partnership that strives around the world, recognising
digital innovators within to create open-source teaching local and regional differences,
anthropology are finding ways materials, achieve widespread looks at what factors are enabling
to use technologies that are global awareness, and develop and limiting innovation and points
altering modern life, such as open-sourced technologies towards some possible futures
AI and big data, to address that will be foundational in where these considerations are
issues like inequality, health and understanding humanity in the beginning to be put into practice.
sustainability. digital age.
UNESCO and the LiiV Center As a starting point, this report

For those readers who are not anthropology professionals, anthropology is the study of what it means to
be human in human society. It is a discipline rooted in observation, empathy and reflexivity. Historically
there are two main schools of thought within Anthropology. The North American tradition has four main
elements: archaeology, linguistics, physical/biological anthropology and cultural/social anthropology.
The British/European history of anthropological research has been more limited to the fields of social
and cultural study. The British school was born out of and informed by the the imperial projects of the
major European powers in the 19th and 20th century. It is generally true that the intellectual flow of
anthropological study has been one-way: that of the Global North undertaking ethnography of the Global
South. This report recognises this bias and attempts to mitigate it.

Limitations: Throughout the process, we (the authors) and the wider group of researchers were faced with accessibility barriers. These were particularly
evident in the private sphere where it could be hard to decipher between innovative technologies and marketing jargon. Furthermore, certain territories
were hard to access due to language or digital barriers. Therefore, we acknowledge that this report is by no means exhaustive, but we have strived
to create a representative overview of the field. Lastly, we acknowledge that the we are coming from bias, but hope to have mitigated this as much as
possible with our collaborative approach and while the navigation of the Global South’s intellectual genealogies are limited we believe this limitation
suggests an opportunity for further exploration in the future.

13
 The arc of the twentieth century is humans watching technical
systems be used to do the worst things that humans have
done to each other.
...
The thing about having grown up in Aboriginal communities
and then anthropology departments was that in both of those
places, you come to realize technology is cultural. It exists inside
a culture. It is a product of a culture. It carries cultural messages
with it. When technology moves across contexts, it takes some
of those messages, and it creates other kinds of challenge.

Genevieve Bell
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF CYBERNETICS AUSTRALIA

Sean, B. (2021, June 16). The past, present, and future of technology with Genevieve Bell—Method in Madness by Dovetail. https://dovetailapp.com/
blog/genevieve-bell-technology-research.

14
Never before has our culture been so seduced by the
promises of artificial intelligence, machine learning
and cognitive computing. Never before has our world
of overlapping political, financial, social, technical, and
environmental systems been so inextricably linked. We
must remind ourselves - and the culture at large - why the
human factor is the most important factor when it comes
to making sense of this world. The time to begin is right
now.

Christian Madsbjerg
AUTHOR OF “SENSEMAKING”
FOUNDER OF RED
Associates Denmark

Madsbjerg, Christian. (2017). Sensemaking: The power of the humanities in the age of the algorithm

15
BUILDING THE
GLOBAL REPORT
This report evolved out of private sectors. Simultaneously, the regional reports and the
months of in-depth, qualitative immersive interviews with expert immersion interviews,
research conducted by experts in the field of digital the authors arrived at the key
anthropologists across the innovation in anthropology were forces of change and the key
globe. First, four individual conducted and recorded for barriers to digital innovation.
Regional Landscape Reports were collective analysis. By placing these in the wider
compiled by local experts. These context of our digitised world,
The Global Report weaves all
reports explored and analysed they are able to suggest what
of this data together in order to
the region’s influencers who will likely be happening next
capture what digital innovation
are bringing digital innovation in the field, as well as offer
looks like in anthropology
to anthropology, ethnographic opportunities for strategic
globally, as well as excavating
theory, tools and methods across intervention.
regional nuances and overarching
academia and the public and
macro themes. By synthesising

16
SOME OF THE METHODS USED THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS WERE:

REGIONAL EXPERT LITERATURE

IMMERSIONS REVIEW
Interviews and ongoing conversation The collation and synthesis of
with digital innovators in open-source information. This
anthropology. method was used to create
extensive databases of innovators
in the field.

DEEP DIVES CO-CREATION

Exploratory research into particular WORKSHOPS
influencers, done in the form A collaborative tool, in this case
of interviews, surveys and desk used for group analysis and
research. visualisation of data patterns.

NETWORK SURVEYING
RECRUITMENT Used by researchers to compile
mass qualitative data and
A recruitment technique in which
opinions from innovators.
research participants are asked to
assist researchers in identifying
other potential subjects.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL DATABASE
INQUIRY ANALYSIS
Reflexive and empathetic analysis Used to visualise data in order
of data, taking care to implement to map out landscape of key
cultural relativism. innovators and key influencers.

17
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By way of introduction, the subsequent pages of

the report map out the current landscape of digital
innovation in anthropology, illustrated by notable
and global examples. We start with a timeline that
indicates how we got to where we are today.

18
ABBREVIATED TIMELINE OF
DIGITAL INNOVATION IN
ANTHROPOLOGY
1 . ANTHROPOLOGY EMERGES AS A
DISTINCT DISCIPLINE (1920s)

Growing out of natural history,

anthropology differentiates itself by its
focus on the study of cultural nuances.
This is primarily achieved through the
comparative study of “the other”, often
in the form of small, marginalised
communities.

2 . THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

BEGINS (1980s)

Computers start to become

commonplace, the first mobile phones
are used commercially, and “digital
technologies” as we think about them
today begin to take shape.

3 . THE PRACTICE OF “DOING

ANTHROPOLOGY DIGITALLY” COMMENCES
(1990s-2000s)

Anthropologists respond by introducing digital

research methods to their practice and conducting
research within digital spaces. Tom Boellstorff
publishes “Coming of Age in Second Life” a
seminal text in what will later become the discipline
of “Digital Anthropology”. The book discusses
research that Boellstorff conducted entirely through
“Second Life”, a virtual role playing game.

19
 4 . THE BIG DATA & DATA SCIENCE
REVOLUTION BEINGS (MID TO LATE
2000S)

The democratisation of data begins

transforming our world. Data
Science and Big Data analysis take
off. By 2016, “data scientist” is the
number-one job listing on popular
employment websites.

5 . THE PRACTICE OF “DOING THE

DIGITAL ANTHROPOLOGICALLY”
COMMENCES (2010S)

Anthropologists begin questioning what

is being lost through the global obsession
with data science: cultural knowledge,
human intuition, empathy? In 2016, Tricia
Wang brings the concept of “thick data”
to the TED Talk stage. Thick data is an
anthropological answer to big data, that
incorporates rich, human nuance at scale, and
argues for the necessity of its integration into
data analysis practices.

6 . BLENDED DIGITAL INNOVATION IN

ANTHROPOLOGY EMERGES LATE 2010S -
EARLY 2020S)

This leads us to where we are today, a

time when key anthropological thinkers
and innovators have begun to blend
“doing the digital anthropologically”
with “doing anthropology digitally”. The
diagram on the following page explores
what this looks like.

20
DIGITAL INNOVATION IN
ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY

21
 Digital Ethnography
Using digital research methods to study digital
and non-digital behaviours, cultures and
communities.
Doing
Anthropology Netnography
Digitally Similar to digital ethnography, netnography
focuses solely on online fieldsites. Methods
often draw upon more computational
approaches such as data-scraping.
“Digitising the
Human” Thick Data
Digital ethnography at scale. Thick Data is
often collected by purpose-built software
that collect qualitative, human insight data
or collect data from open-sources (like social
media).

“Doing Anthropology Digitally” is characterised by

the migration of anthropological practices into digital
environments and using digital tools. Much of the action
The digital provides many new
in this space happens within academia, where theoretical
opportunities for anthropology to help us
researchers are interested in the symbiotic relationship
understand what it means to be human”
between human beings and digital technologies. What can
the digital teach us about being human? How do humans (Horst & Miller, 2012)
impact digital technologies?

People “Doing Anthropology Digitally”

Heather Horst (Australia) Danah Boyd (USA)

Director of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western One of the first “digital anthropologists,” she is a seminal voice
Sydney University. A sociocultural anthropologist by training, she in the discipline famous for studying social media behaviour
researches material culture and the mediation of social relations on platforms like MySpace. Today she is partner researcher at
through digital media and technology. Microsoft Research, and founder and president of Data & Society
Research Institute.

Daniel Miller (UK) Marcos De Colsa & Veronica Espinoza Gonzalez (Mexico)
Since the early 2000s, Miller has been researching the effects Co-founders of NetHabitus, a social consultancy bringing
of new social media on society. He has explored topics such understanding of digital communities and how new cultural
as cell phones, Facebook and transnational families. Together dynamics help create communities on the web, via digital means,
with presenting a theoretical framework for studying social especially netnography.
networking sites, he has proposed new concepts such as of
‘polymedia’ and ‘Scalable Sociality.’

Horst, H. A., & Miller, D. (2012). Digital anthropology. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

22
 AI & Data Ethics
Studying the human implications of technolo-
gies like AI, algorithms and data analysis.

Doing the Digital

Data Science incorporating Thick Data
Anthropologically Seen in software like Remesh which uses
algorithms to process mass qualitative data
Humanising the collected in an anthropological way.
digital”
Quantitative Anthropology
The application of anthropological analysis
and data processing to quantitative data
collection.

“Doing the Digital Anthropologically” is characterised “When we focus solely on hard data and natural
by anthropological research of the global infatuation with science methods - “When we attempt to quantify
“the digital.” Innovators in this area study things like the human behaviour only as so many quarks or
biases within algorithms, the privacy implications of social widgets - we erode our sensitivity to all the forms of
knowledge that are not reductionist. We lose touch
media, and what is lost through big data analysis. At the
with the books, music, art and culture that allow us to
same time, this space is populated by data scientists and
experience ourselves in a complex social context. We
quantitative researchers who have begun to implement dismiss this cultural knowledge - cultivated through
more anthropological thinking into their practice. Much humanities thinking - at great risk to our future.”
of the movement in this space happens in the private
(Excerpt from “Sensemaking: The Power of Humanities in the
sector. Microsoft Research and Intel Labs are some of the
Age of the Algorithm” by Christian Madsbjerg)
key players in this space, the first of which has employed
anthropologists like Danah Boyd, Mary L. Gray and Kate
Crawford in effort to humanise their digital practices.

People and Institutions “Doing the Digital Anthropologically”

Digital Methods Initiative (Netherlands)

Mary L Gray (USA)
Collective dedicated to developing techniques for Internet-
As Senior Principle Researcher at Microsoft Research, Gray’s
related research and to the study of the natively digital.
research experience lends to the multi-faceted nature of ethical
Comprised of new media researchers and PhD candidates, it
considerations, pushing not only socioeconomic considerations,
designs methods and tools for repurposing online devices and
but also those of ethnicity and queer considerations.
platforms (such as Twitter, Facebook and Google) for research
into social and political issues.

Evelyn Ruppert (United Kingdom) Renzo Taddei (Brasil)

Founding Editor-in-Chief of Big Data & Society, an Professor of Anthropology at Sao Paulo Federal University, Taddei
interdisciplinary scholarly journal studying the impact of practices ‘Data Ethnography’ whereby he turns an ethnographic
Big Data on society and Principle Investigator at Arithmus, a lens on databases used in terrestrial systems such as meteorology
collective ethnographically studying the implications of big data to understand the presence influence therein of the characteristics
in census taking. “surveillance capitalism” common in digital social media.

Madsbjerg, C. (2017). Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm. Hachette UK.

23
 From our analysis, the liminal space in-between “digitising
the human” and “humanising the digital” seems to be
LIMINAL the space where the most exciting and forward-thinking

INNOVATION digital innovations are occurring. Innovators in this space

SPACE
are not only using complex digital tools (computational
visualisation, artificial intelligence) but are also thinking
BLENDED ALGORITHMS reflexively about the tools themselves. In the process, a
Algorithms that collect and analyse conscious effort is being made to not lose the “thickness”
thick data and big data at the same or “human intimacy” of ethnographic data when it is being
time: an anthropological algorithm.
collected or processed at scale. There is a constant back-
COMPUTATIONAL ANTHROPOLOGY and-forth ingrained into the process. This space is also
The holistic study of humankind for characterised by the collaboration between data scientists
understanding of human behavior, and anthropologists, often in the name of “futurism.”
culture and evolution using computa-
The space is characterised by its intersectionality: a
tional methods. Methods include social
blurry and liminal meeting point for data scientists and
network analysis, data mining, natural
anthropologists, as well as sociologists, computational
language processing, and modeling.
scientists, psychologists, and even policymakers.
TECHNO ANTHROPOLOGY
“We think of the world of digital traces as a field to be explored
An approach to digital anthropolo- rather than a data repository to be modelled. We think of
gy that advocates for a responsible algorithms as pragmatic tools that can open for qualitative insights
development of technology that builds into meaning production rather than a-theoretical tools that detect

on the active consideration of social patterns in a more neutral way that a human being.” (TANTLab)

relations, the engagement of users, Interestingly, digital innovation within this space seems
and an in-depth understanding of the
to be at the beginning of its journey. We hypothesise that
complexities of technology-in-use.
this is due to the tendency towards insular teaching and
DIGITAL ANTHROPOLOGY silo mentalities within academia (e.g. an anthropologist
By digital anthropology in this context, is not a data scientist and vice versa). In reality, the more
we specifically refer to the version
anthropologists can embrace and find ways to work with
of the discipline which both studies
and alongside data and computational scientists, the faster
the digital anthropologically and
this innovation will occur. Moreover, the existing innovation
simultaneously studies anthropology
digitally. happening in this in-between space points to a fantastic
opportunity to educate a new generation of mixed method
researchers who are born out of this liminal space.

People at the “Liminal Innovation Space”

ALBERTO COTTICA (BELGIUM)
Researcher with a quantitative background (economics, network science, data analysis) who combines this with qualitative research (anthropology,
ethnography). His main object of study is the emergence of collective intelligence from individual – but networked – behaviour. Founder of
Edgeryders (more on page 16).

DARIUSZ JEMIELNIAK (POLAND) GENEVIEVE BELL (AUSTRALIA) ken anderson (USA)

Head of MINDS (Management in Holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology Co-founder (with Tracey Lovejoy) of
Networked and Digital Societies) from Stanford University and is a EPIC (Ethnographic Praxis in Industry
Community) a nonprofit organization
department at Kozminski University. renowned anthropologist, technologist,
dedicated to offering resources to
Experienced ethnographer advocating and futurist, having spent more than two
promote ethnography use in industry.
for mixing digital ethnography with data decades in Silicon Valley helping guide
Also a principal researcher at Intel
science. Author of Thick Big Data, the Intel’s product development and social where, during his time at Intel Research
first book to systematically combine science and design research capabilities. Labs Berkeley, he is credited with
big data with thick data and integrate developing ethno-mining: a method that
research approaches. integrates ethnographic and data mining
techniques.

The Techno-Anthropology Lab (TANTLab). (2022). Re-Tooling Ethnography. https://www.tantlab.aau.dk/lab-philosophy/re-tooling-ethnography.

24
THE ACADEMIC TO
PRIVATE PIPELINE
Innovation in the liminal space labs, where there is a focus on knowing. As is the case with many
is fuelled by an academic to the reflexive blending of both innovators in this space, Anders
private pipeline. There is a ways of knowing: digital and continues to straddle both
common trajectory of influencers human. sectors today.
in this space who start off in
An example of this pipeline In some cases, the digital
academia, studying digital and
is Anders Kristian Munk, an innovations developed in this
social research methods. Next,
academic at Aalborg University liminal space are then brought
they move into private sector
in Denmark, who went on over and applied in public
research, notice the global trend
to co-found his own Human sector. A great example of this
towards big data and begin
Data Science company before is the Policy Lab, which under
applying their anthropological
becoming the head of his the leadership of Dr. Andrea
insight. From here, many
university’s Techno-Anthropology Siodmok, has begun applying
influencers are inspired to create
Lab. The Lab’s goal is to close the blended methods (thick and big
or join research collectives, in the
gaps between anthropological data) to policy making in the UK.
form of think tanks or academic
and technological ways of

The academic to private pipeline also offers an opportunity to recognise the implications for gender
equality within and beyond the discipline. In fact, there is a general ethos of promoting gender equality
through anthropological insight. Ingrid Brudvig, for example, argues that “applying feminist digital
ethnography across sectors (as an action-research and gender data methodology) is foundational to the
transformation of organisations, communities, companies and governments.”*

Unfortunately, this report does not have the breadth to address this topic comprehensively. However,
the ongoing collaboration between UNESCO and the LiiV Center is committed to delving into gender
equality implications future stages. For further reading, we recommend Ingrid Brudvig’s article “Towards
a Feminist Digital Ethnography,” as well as Zoe Glatt’s LSE Digital Ethnography Collective Reading List.

Brudvig, I. (2021, February 15). Towards a Feminist Digital Ethnography. Medium. https://ingrid-brudvig.medium.com/towards-a-feminist-digital-ethnogra-
phy-bb3e907e97af.

25
Macro Global
Themes &
Insights
In the process of synthesising the regional reports,
the regional expert immersions and further desk
research, we discovered four overarching themes
that characterise the global landscape of digital
innovation in anthropology.

26
ANTHROPOLOGY
IN TRANSITION
Anthropology has always had munity. Nowadays, contemporary human culture in order to be able
a bit of a marketing problem: anthropologists are invested in to “present black & white images”
nobody outside of the discipline creating ways of knowing that are that can more easily be acted
seems to know what it is. As a less one-directional and, there- upon (in the words of Gillian Tett).
result, anthropology is in the fore, less transactional. In the This marks a significant change in
process of a significant rebrand. process, ethnography has mor- thinking within the discipline.
Besides its more recent shift in phed into a wide-array of more
Across some regions of Asia,
response to the digitised world, collaborative and reflexive meth-
however, anthropology has a
over the last few decades anthro- odologies, from auto-ethnogra-
reputation that it is struggling
pologists have been increasingly phy (the anthropologist observing
to shake off. Anthropologists
turning their trademark reflexive themselves) to citizen ethnogra-
are seen as hyper-critical and
eye upon themselves. In the pro- phy (turning the researched into
non-constructive. In Africa, a
cess, traditional ways of knowing the researcher).
region that has often been on
that have been foundational to
In Europe & North America, the receiving end of the “anthro-
the discipline are being called
this transition has resulted in pological gaze,” the discipline is
into question.
anthropology’s slow distancing transitioning in a very different
For example, the primary tool from academic “purity”. There is way. Instead of glossing over the
of cultural anthropology is eth- instead a push towards anthro- colonialist history of the disci-
nography, the practice of tempo- pology as an unaffiliated force of pline, African anthropologists
rarily integrating into a commu- equity and empathy. This shift is are using anthropology as a way
nity in order to collect qualitative being facilitated by the growth to return the gaze back to the
data by observing and participat- of “applied anthropology,” or the Western World. In this context,
ing in cultural rituals. This meth- focused application of anthropo- anthropology is more closely
odology relies heavily on both logical methods to solving specific associated with movements like
observation and interviewing, a problems in the private or public Afrofuturism than solely cultural
process that has historically failed spheres. In the process, anthro- observation. Evidently, across the
to produce mutually beneficial pology has started to transition globe, anthropology is in a state
knowledge for both the anthro- away from its hyper-nuanced, of metamorphosis.
pologists and the observed com- “shades of gray” approach to

Vikas, S. (2021, June 27). How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life: A Conversation with Gillian Tett, Author of Anthro-Vision. Thought Economics. https://
thoughteconomics.com/gillian-tett.

27
 Let’s tell great stories about anthropology […] The world
is in great need of clarity and guidance in its process
of change, and the liminal state we are in means there
has never been a better time for applied anthropology.
That means anthropology should change. We need to
move beyond describing the essence of culture towards
explaining, guiding and creating change and movement
in society.

EXCERPT FROM “ANTHROPOLOGISTS WANTED”

(JITSKE KRAMER, CORPORATE ANTHROPOLOGIST
BASED IN THE NETHERLANDS)

Bakker, L., Cohen, M., & Faaij, W. (2021). Anthropologists Wanted: Why Organizations Need Anthropology. Amsterdam University Press.

28
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL
DIASPORA
Since the 1920s, the anthropological discipline has compelling and sensorial intercultural meeting spaces.
been slowly spreading from its original intellectual The UCL Multimedia Anthropology Lab, for example,
heartlands (North America and Europe) across the are long-term collaborators with the Guarani and
globe. In the process, it has become abstracted and Kaiowá indigenous communities in Brazil. Following
fragmented, the product of its adoption (and at numerous conferences and knowledge shares, the
times rejection) across countries and cultures. This team has been able to co-create a virtual museum of
diversity in thinking and doing is one of anthropology’s indegnous Brazilian cultures. The project “seeks to
greatest strengths. It allows anthropology to act as an address concerns raised by indigenous communities
intercultural meeting space and ingrains one of the regarding community access to heritage management
disciplines core beliefs: cultural relativism. by creating a digital infrastructure through which local
In some cases, digital innovation within communities can preserve, curate, and display their
anthropology is being used to create even more material and immaterial cultural heritage” (UCL MAL).

Non-exhaustive visualisation of
Anthropology is fundamentally a tool that anthropology’s intersections

helps people from different cultural backgrounds

understand each other. As anthropology has spread, it
has evolved to include people and perspectives from
different academic or sector backgrounds as well.
The diagram on this page offers just a few examples
of intersections that are facilitated by anthropology.
Through the lens of anthropology, data scientists can
communicate with natural historians, linguists with
designers and film-makers with sociologists.
This diversification of anthropology, in both
the cultural and disciplinary sense, in combination
with the discipline’s love of nuance and “thick
description”, has also resulted in an interesting anthropology, “Internet Studies”. In Latin America,
phenomenon: there is no universal agreement on anthropologists use the vessel of UX to describe
what anthropology is and what it should do. Instead, their techniques. In Europe and North America,
around the world and between sectors, anthropology there remains a focus on cultural and organisational
goes by different names, is practiced in different understanding or simply “qualitative research”. In this
ways and solves different issues. Across Asia and the way, the discipline’s biggest strength constitutes a
Pacific, anthropology is best-known as Humanities, significant weakness. What opportunities are lost by
Media and Communications or, in the case of digital the lack of a shared vocabulary?

Fryer-Moreira, R., Fernandes, F., & Coupaye, L. (2022). Guarani and Kaiowá Virtual Museum Experimental Approaches to Collaborative Heritage. UCL MAL.
https://www.uclmal.com/virtual-museum.

29
A COLLABORATIVE
MINDSET
One of the most obvious global trends within digital innovation in anthropology is the leaning towards
innovation as a collaborative practice. There is a growing consensus that anthropological discipline can
be strengthened through collective methods, encouraged by the belief that involving the perspectives of
many is a productive way to mitigate against bias. These approaches encourage democratic and equitable
interaction, as well as integrating cultural relativism into research practice. As stated in Cornell University
Press’s 2021 book Collaborative Anthropology Today, “as multi sited research has become mainstream in
anthropology, collaboration has gained new relevance and traction as a critical infrastructure of both
fieldwork and theory, enabling more ambitious research designs, forms of communication, and analysis.”
We noticed that a collaborative mindset was often a strong signpost of digital innovation in
anthropological practices. Many key innovators use the digital not only as a tool to study with, or an object
to study, but as a means of gathering.

Organizational Online Knowledge Open-Source

Innovation Networks Software
For example, Edgeryders an “open For example, the TikTok Cultures For example, PECE Platform
consulting” company comprised of Research Network, founded by for Experimental Collaborative
“smart communities” that are working Associate Professor Crystal Abidin. It is Ethnography, an open-source, web
on hard problems from climate a global portal for scholarly resources, based (Drupal) software that allows
change to resilience building. The research projects, and events for multi-site ethnography to be
online community comprises of over surrounding studies and learnings of performed while simultaneously
5,000 “citizen experts” in 80 countries: TikTok covering topics like race, identity, sharing and storing data. PECE was
hackers, activists, radical thinkers migration, health, and disability which built on a longstanding need in the
and doers, and just normal people can still be underrepresented topics field for a place to store ethnographic
that want to make a difference. By in the discipline of digital studies. The field data that would be able to change
operating at the “edge” of problems, network recently released a TikTok as ethnographic research needs
the community is able to operate in a Syllabus, which provides a curation of change. The user has control over the
space of no assumptions, no answers the early landscape of TikTok Studies, way their data is displayed, and how it
and no boundaries. providing educators and researchers will be consumed by other users. The
with resources to teach and think platform also has full integration with
about TikTok through various socio- the open source software Zotero, which
cultural perspectives. is already used by ethnographers.

Boyer, D., & Marcus, G. E. (2021). Collaborative Anthropology Today: A Collection of Exceptions. In INTRODUCTION Collaborative Anthropology Today: A
Collection of Exceptions (pp. 1–21). Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501753374-001

30
DIGITAL INNOVATION
AS A WEB
In the process of mapping out digital innovation within anthropology across the globe, we came to
realise that specific examples of digital innovation (like a new term, technology or software) do not exist
in isolation. Instead, we noticed a complex web of prior innovations, ways of thinking, terminologies and
methodologies.
While it is always the case that “new” ideas are inspired by the work of others, we found this web
of innovation to be particularly complex within digital innovation in anthropology. The diagram on this
page evidences this, tracing back the works that informed and influenced Tricia Wang’s article “Why Big
Data Needs Thick Data.” As you can see, the influences range from Clifford Geertz’s concept of “Thick
Description” from 1973, to Kate Crawford’s 2013 piece on “The Hidden Biases in Big Data”. What is even
more fascinating is the complex web that extends between the influence materials themselves.
If we take into account the significant abstraction and fragmentation of anthropological language and the
silo mentality of its academic space, the web we see illustrated here is really just the tip of the iceberg. In
theory, two anthropological collectives could be developing identical innovative methodologies, just using
different vocabularies.

31
 Demonstration
Demonstration ofintricate
of the the intricate
web web
of
ofinnovation
innovation within anthropology.
within anthropology
(Please credit: Courtesy of Jacob Bowen)
(Credit: Courtesy of Jacob Bowen)

32
Regional
Nuances
As previously mentioned, four regional reports
helped to inform this global report, each of which
focused on a particular region: (1) Asian & Pacific
States, (2) Latin American & Caribbean States, (3)
African and Arab States and (4) European and
North American States. The following pages identify
nuances between these regions.

33
ASIAN &
PACIFIC STATES

34
 Our regional report indicates that digital which differ from other areas around the world.
innovation in anthropology is concentrated in six As with other regions, there is wide variation in
countries: Australia, China, India, Japan, Singapore levels of activity within anthropology and widely
and the Republic of Korea, with the greatest varying working definitions of innovation. Indeed
presence in two spaces: research (academics, it was hard for our researchers to pin down
labs, and research clusters) and the private sector commonly shared notions and descriptions of
(largely in the form of transnational Market what digital innovation actually means within
Research agencies) Asia. Listed below are some of the key regional
While it is clear that there are many world- nuances affecting the impact of digital innovation
class social science research clusters within this in anthropological practice in the region:
region, they often present their activities in ways

01.
While ethnographic tools are widely used they are largely situated within academic
assemblages in Media and Communications departments in universities, rather than in
anthropology. Two of the leading exponents of multidisciplinary approaches using ethnographic
methods of enquiry; Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore.
Anthropology as a term and as a discipline is largely sidelined or subsumed under other approaches
and subjects and therefore lacks even its own home within many key institutions.

02.
Broadly there is a belief that hard data-driven understandings of social and cultural
issues are the most effective since they are quantifiable and therefore justifiable. Softer
approaches do not seem to have the same cultural cache as hard data. It seems that in this region
techno-solutionism is the dominant paradigm and anthropology .

03.
Finally, it is worth noting that research within the key countries (except Australia) listed
above is largely focussed internally on local and national issues. This is a divergence from
more traditional and outward facing anthropological objectives.

04.
There are noteworthy exceptions of course and there is much top level collaborative
anthropological work going on in institutions such as the Digital Ethnographic Research
Center and the Emerging Technologies Research Lab (ETRL) at Monash. However, even here it
is worth noting that the ETRL straddles both the faculty of Art Design and Architecture and the faculty
of Information Technology.

35
LATIN AMERICA
AND THE
CARIBBEAN
Digital innovation in anthropology in this region can be characterised as a microcosm of the discipline
globally: there are pockets of innovation across a widely diverse region, the collaborative mindset driving
cross-functional effort is at play, there is engagement between academia and the private sector and there
are efforts to bring understanding of the subject to wider non-anthropological audiences. Our researchers
discovered that Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico were the four most dynamic countries in terms of
innovative anthropological activity.

36
 However intra-regional variations are wide issues and local cultures, in other words a more
and in Central America and the Caribbean traditional iteration and understanding of the
countries, less innovation was found in terms of discipline. While intra-regional variations exist,
tools, methods and research topics. The focus there has nonetheless been a recent upsurge in
here is mainly on issues related to traditional fields initiatives driving the discipline into new arenas.
in the research such as ethnicity, race, religion, The “evangelisers” of digital anthropology are
multiculturalism, indigenous peoples, indigenous mainly situated in academic and private sectors.
communities (both current and historical), heritage

01.
There has been a push for cross-regional organisation and innovation. The recent
formation of the Latin American Network of Digital Anthropology is testament to this. They are a
collective of dissemination, discussion, learning and creation of knowledge about the relationship
between anthropology and digital technologies. Their mission is to promote anthropological-
digital discussions focused on the region and its history, challenges and characteristics. They hope
to offer a counterpoint to the traditional separation of disciplines enshrined in university teaching
and faculty structures and aim to promote dialogue between fields and co-build new ways of
doing anthropology through collaboration and interdisciplinary cooperation. Similarly, Antropolab
aims to create communities within and between areas of Applied Anthropology.

02.
Anthropologists in the region are seeking to market the discipline to new audiences
using digital channels and platforms. LAAB, The Open Anthrolab in Colombia, acts to
popularise anthropology via audiovisual means. As they say, “our strategy is to ‘translate’ academic
articles into comics, podcasts, short videos, and infographics, so this information can be easier to
understand for children and teenagers. We even hope this can help to create public policies.’ This
is an innovative approach to spreading the word about anthropology and countering the criticism
that it is an abstract and esoteric academic subject.

03.
There are pockets of innovation where multidisciplinary integration is at the fore.
Organisations such as NetHabitus and Lab Tecno-social are working cross-functionally at the
intersections of anthropology and data. The former is a social consultancy in Mexico blending
anthropology, neuroscience, data science, thick data and marketing and is a regional pioneer
in the development of computational anthropology. The work of Lab Tecno-social is aimed at
integrating traditional approaches and sensibilities from the social sciences and anthropology
(social categories, interviews, participant observation, etc.) with computerized methods (data
science, scraping, GIS, etc.).

04.
Overall, the region offers a wide spectrum of digital innovation within anthropology,
from the barely incipient to more cutting edge.

37
AFRICAN &
ARAB STATES

38
 The story of anthropology in Africa has taken a one of modernisation, development and equitable
different trajectory to that of many other regions. realising of huge human potential. While themes
The timeline of the development of the discipline such as ‘transition’, the ‘diaspora’ and ‘collaborative
has a very indigenous flavour, influenced by firstly practice’ mentioned in other regions are in play
colonialism and its aftermath, and subsequently by in Africa, they are visible at a more macro level
a uniquely African response to African problems. than the narrow confines of digital anthropology,
First and foremost the story of digital or even anthropology as a whole. Comparison
innovation in anthropology in Africa is at a with other regions is best drawn by looking at the
different stage of development than in many other wider issues of technological advancement across
parts of the world. It is at best nascent and most societies, digitisation and the very real limitations
aptly characterised as ‘potential’. Africa’s story is of under-developed infrastructure.
not one of digital innovation in anthropology but

01.
The character of anthropology in the region matches its history. Initially Centerd in western-
style universities during the colonial period, the discipline was very much a part of a one-way intellectual
flow where Africa and Africans were the objects of study by European and American scholars. After
being rejected by African scholars after liberation in the 60s and 70s, the discipline was reinvented
regionally around Marxist thinking. It then sought to focus on cultural analysis and since the early
2000s has leaned more toward development, applied anthropology, gender and medical issues.

02.
The continent is moving forward in its efforts to innovate technologically. The emergence
of Silicon Savannah in Kenya, of Yabacon Valley in Nigeria and Sheba Valley in Ethiopia are testament
to this, as is the launch of the CYFY Africa Conference on Technology Innovation and Society 2019,
where issues addressed included social media and politics, digital ethics, the transformation of health
systems enabled by emerging technologies and the vision of AfroFuturism as represented through art
and culture disseminated via digital technologies.

03.
What characterises innovation in anthropology in Africa most clearly is the return of the
ethnographic gaze back on to the West. There are 40 academic institutions in the US focussing
on Africa including the Harvard Center for African Studies and the Council on African Studies at Yale.
The direction of this intellectual gaze is being reversed by such organisations as the African Center
for the Study of the United States (ACSUS) who’s aim, according to Prince Mudau, is to “redress the
imbalance in the knowledge flow between the US and Africa.” Similarly, the African Language Center in
Morocco studies American language and culture. These are early days, but the transition is underway.

Mudau, P. (2021). Returning the gaze: Why we need more African think tanks that study the United States. Africa Portal. https://www.africaportal.org/features/
returning-gaze-why-we-need-more-african-think-tanks-study-united-states.

39
EUROPEAN &
NORTH AMERICAN
STATES
40
 This region benefits from a number of key than in other regions. Lastly, the digital divide and
factors that make it one of the strongest regions in investment disparity in this region is significantly
terms of digital innovation in anthropology. Firstly less than within the other 3 regions. As a result,
it is the birthplace of anthropology, meaning that digital innovation within this space is far more
the discipline benefits from a number of academic experimental and hypothetical, largely due
strongholds in the field. Secondly, in the last to more available funding for such purposes.
decade or so, anthropology has begun permeating Research labs, like ETHOS Lab in Denmark, attempt
into the private sector and is currently seen as a to address universal and theoretical questions,
desirable skill in across multiple sectors. Alongside rather than focusing specifically on urgent needs
this, there are also significantly more groups and of the region.
collectives that research or promote anthropology

01.
A key nuance is that there is more overlap between the private and public sectors. Many key
digital innovators in anthropology from this region have a foot in all three sectors: public, private and
academic. Moreover, through movements like social entrepreneurship, there is far more sharing of
ideas between private and public sectors than in other regions. Another related regional nuance is the
complex interconnectedness of key influencers in the field. Top innovators, like Kate Crawford, Mary
L. Gray and Danah Boyd, often have careers that span multiple sectors and multiple disciplines. What
results are webs of interconnectedness throughout the field of digital innovation in anthropology.

02.
In terms of specific examples of digital innovation, this region has the widest and most
advanced range. There are data scientists incorporating big data (like Dariusz Jemielniak in Poland),
multiple examples of blended algorithms (like The Cynefin Co. in the UK), countless theoretical digital
anthropologists (like Christine Hine), and a multitude of data & AI ethicists and think tanks (like Andrea
Siodmok’s Policy Lab).

03.
Researchers in this region noted four main signposts that often accompanied digital
innovation in anthropology in the region. These were technical innovation (new methods and digital
techniques), organisational innovation (new structures and social hierarchies), innovation in purpose
(new goals for the discipline) and ethical innovation (delving into contemporary ethical concerns around
emerging technologies). Ethical innovation is a strong characteristic of innovation in the region as a
whole.

04.
The atmosphere around anthropology as a whole is overwhelmingly positive compared to
other regions. It is very rooted in its perception as driver of ethics and equity, which is evident in its
popularity in both the academic and private sectors.

41
Forces of
Change
The subsequent pages identify the forces of change
that are fuelling digital innovation in anthropology and
unpack what this means for the field.

42
THE DIGITIZED
WORLD
Perhaps most obviously, one of the key factors galvanized to re-introduce “the human element”
fuelling digital innovation in anthropology is our into rapidly advancing areas like data science
increasingly digitised world. In the simplest sense, and AI. As the world is faced with more and more
anthropology is a science that was not originally issues that are being exacerbated by the digital,
designed to be executed at the scale which modern like mass misinformation, data privacy and political
data collection technologies now allow. In its purest polarisation, it seems as though the skill set needed
form, it requires extremely long periods of in-depth, to react is uniquely anthropological: human
in-person ethnography and participant observation. empathy.
We notice a change when anthropologists began
There is also a growing need to answer questions
studying digital environments, slowly adopting
posed by the digital around the future of things
tools like web scraping and netnography. Now,
like surveillance technology, forms of expression
anthropologists are increasingly opening up to a
and even identity. Foresight and guidance can be
breadth of computational, data science and virtual
offered by anthropologists, who have been already
ethnography tools that are allowing the discipline to
studying these delicate relationships for years. So
begin to match the scale of the digital world.
while there is an element of anthropology fighting
In some ways the digital and anthropology are to stay relevant in a digital world, it is equally
the polar opposite of each other: anthropology becoming clear that anthropology may be exactly
is nuanced and undefined, while the digital is what is needed to understand the digital world.
binary and fixed by nature. However, as we have
already touched on, the anthropologists have

THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC

Social distancing, international lockdowns and enforced isolation have driven the world further into the
digital realm. This has resulted in an increased urgency to understand what it means to be human in a
digitised world. These circumstances have also directly driven digital innovation within anthropological
research itself: when you can’t do physically co-present research, you have to do it via digital means. In
this case, necessity has become the mother of invention.

At the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic has made clear the importance of global reflexive and empa-
thetic thinking: two ways of thinking that are intrinsic to the anthropological discipline. The pandemic has
brought anthropology and ethnographic study of the social phenomena resulting from it onto the world
stage. This has had the effect of compounding the perceived relevance of anthropology in addressing
social issues, particularly in the public sector. In this way the social landscape has moved in anthropolo-
gy’s direction and the moment for digital innovation in the discipline is now. The results of pandemic are
anthropology’s tactical opportunity.

43
PRIVATE SECTOR
RECOGNITION &
INTERSECTIONALITY
As touched upon by the “academic to private pipeline” on page 27, the private sector is a key driver in
digital innovation within anthropology. However, this pipeline would be far less successful if there was
not already a foundation of anthropological recognition in the private sector. Overall, regions whose
private sectors have embraced anthropology as a fundamentally important tool tend to be regions with
the highest levels of digital innovation, largely thanks to ample funding. This is especially the case in
North America and Europe, where as the sector becomes more saturated with anthropological thinking,
competitive private enterprises seek to further differentiate themselves and their products. There remains
work to be done however to build labour markets which recognise the importance, desirability and utility
of intersectional skills. An anthropologist who has such skills in their toolkit is easier for employers to hire
in public and private sector and NGOs jobs, but this idea needs to be promoted across industries, sectors
and regions.

As with North America and Europe, the “industry-academia-government” triad is a pipeline to funding
innovation in the Pacific region. Close co-operation between academics, governments and private
enterprise is exemplified by the work of the Emerging Technologies Lab at Monash University where
anthropological research is applied to real-life issues such as health, energy, mobility and sustainability
in Australia and internationally with direct co-operation and financial input from public and private
bodies. Such funding is crucial for these operations to digitally innovate. Another means by which the
private sector pushes digital innovation is the fact that anthropology within this sector has to be both
interdisciplinary and intersectional. This way of collaborating is a hotbed for innovation, already evidenced
by the diagram on page 31. In fact, across all of the regional reports that fed into this global report,
interdisciplinary collaboration was credited as a key driver of digital innovation in anthropology.

However, it is worth noting that the private sector’s more recent interest in anthropology is largely due
to the collective efforts of anthropologists themselves. This is particularly visible in North America and
Europe, where applied anthropology associations abound: American Anthropological Association (AAA),
American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA), European Association of Social Anthropologists
(EASA), Global Business Anthropology Summit (GBAS), Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), World Council
of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), and others, which all promote the discipline and showcase
its applications in both the private and public sectors. As a result, private sphere Market Research
membership organisations, like ESOMAR and the Market Research Society, have begun recognising
anthropological methods, encouraging their private members to engage with them. While the growth
of applied anthropology (specifically applied anthropology to the private sector) is a key driver of digital
innovation in the discipline,

44
PROBLEM SOLVING
Across the globe, using anthropology as a tool of problem solving drives its digital innovation. One of the
best example of this can be seen in academic labs, fundamental nexuses of digital innovation across almost
all regions. Labs are unique in their interdisciplinary, ethical, and experimental cultures, as they are often
created to address specific societal concerns. They are often the starting points of the conversations that
become high–profile digital innovation and are largely driven by a belief that multi-disciplinary approaches
can offer wider, deeper and more accurate understanding of human behaviours and needs. For example:

TECHNO- LAB TECNOSOCIAL, 3A INSTITUTE,

ANTHROPOLOGY BOLIVIA AUSTRALIA
GROUP (TANT),
DENMARK

Lab developing Collective of social The 3A Institute sits within

technologically-enabled scientists and computer the School of Cybernetics
anthropology at the engineers who develop with the mission to build a
intersection of new data digital technologies for new branch of engineering
intensive methods, co- research and change. to take AI-enabled cyber-
design and ethnography. They integrate traditional physical systems to scale
They offer hands-on approaches and sensibilities and to create a new
workspace for students from the social sciences generation of practitioners
and researchers to develop and anthropology (social with the skills and
innovative approaches to categories, interviews, knowledge we need to help
the study of digital media participant observation, etc.) shape this future safely,
and work with a variety with computerized methods sustainably and responsibly.
of public and private (data science, scraping,
partners. Recent projects GIS, etc.) Membership
include ‘Algorithms, Data is transnational, cross-
and Democracy’, and disciplinary and from both
‘Ethnographic Future private and academic
Making: Datafication, sectors.
Environment and
Infrastructures.

It is important to note that problem solving looks different across different regions. Whilst in North
America, Europe and Australia there are is a lot of fascinating innovation emerging from labs who are
experimenting with tackling global issues through critical engagement practice, researchers noted that in
African and Asian countries, problem solving is pointed more inward and more towards practicalities (like
provision of medical services). Simply put, within these regions innovation is best achieved by addressing
pressing national and local issues, rather than hypothetical or universal ones.

45
Barriers to
Digital
Innovation
The subsequent pages identify barriers that
are slowing down the development of digital
innovation within anthropology, and offers some
considerations in how to overcome them.

46
THE DIGITAL DIVIDE AND
INVESTMENT DISPARITY
Globally, infrastructure is extremely unequally distributed, as is affordable access to said infrastructure.
According to the UN, internet access is considered affordable when the cost of a gig of data is less than 2%
of gross monthly income. However, on the African continent, data prices are 5.7% of gross monthly income
compared to 2.7% in South America and 1.6% in Asia-Pacific. In fact, “only 14 of the 48 African countries
included in the ranking have affordable internet access” (The Africa Report). Further disparities in access to
infrastructure exist between urban and rural areas in many countries, with high cost and low returns often
cited as a reason for lack of investment in such areas.
More widely, in many regions, investment in innovative technologies lags far behind its human and eco-
nomic potential. While Africa has 18% of the world’s population (2020) it has only 3.4% of global GDP and
only 0.3% share of global R&D spend. These barriers to innovation are structural, historical, political and
economic. Digital innovation in anthropology is far down the list of investment priorities in regions such as
this.

Benhaddou, S. (2021, July 13). Africa: Which countries charge the most for internet data? The Africa Report. https://www.theafricareport.com/107259/africa-
which-countries-charge-the-most-for-internet-data.

47
CHALLENGING
CULTURAL HERITAGE
Anthropology originally emerged as a discipline rest of the world. Thus challenging cultural heritage
intending to “scientifically classify groups of human remains a significant barrier in the global adoption
beings as different and therefore separate the sav- of anthropological methods - and with good reason.
age from the civilized, the literate from the illiterate, How can we challenge the tradition of anthropolo-
the traditional from the modern” (Anna Clark). Thus, gy as a Western export? Furthermore, how can we
ethnography has been historically used as a tool to reshape anthropology’s extractive patterns? These
create and reinforce hierarchical violence. Whilst questions need to be answered if digital innovation
considerable care has being taken by anthropolo- in anthropology is to be adopted globally. There is
gists as a collective to shift away from these narra- still much work to be done in acknowledging the
tives, fundamentally, the anthropologist continues damage done by early anthropology, as well as how
to control the ethnographic gaze. to attempt to empower those historically affected.
Here we can learn from observing anthropological
As aforementioned, many African academics and
trends in Africa. Across the continent, (and also now
innovators consider anthropology an imposition.
in the US among indigenous and black anthropolo-
Likewise, in Asia anthropology is often dismissed as
gists, see Kim Tallbear’s ‘Native American DNA’ for
“backward-thinking.” These opinions are justified,
example) anthropologists have begun to “return the
as within anthropology as a whole, the intellectual
gaze”. The observers are beginning to be observed.
flow remains very one way: from the West to the

The penetrative gaze on Africa and Africans, as a continent, it’s countries, peo-
ple, bodies and everything else African dates back to the 1940s. When the US
is gazing at Africa, where is Africa looking? Does Africa return the gaze?”
(PRINCE MUDAU, AFRICAN PORTAL)

1. Clark, A. (2019). The Why and the How: Rethinking Anthropology through an Africana Lens – AFRI 0090 S01: An Introduction to Africana Studies. https://blogs.
brown.edu/afri-0090-s01-2019-fall/2019/12/02/the-why-and-the-how-rethinking-anthropology-through-an-africana-lens.
2. Mudau, P. (2021). Returning the gaze: Why we need more African think tanks that study the United States. Africa Portal. https://www.africaportal.org/fea-
tures/returning-gaze-why-we-need-more-african-think-tanks-study-united-states.

48
TECHNO-
SOLUTIONISM
Globally, there is a cultural leaning towards “tech- human’, which misses or ignores human alterities
no-solutionism,” or simply the belief that technology and inequalities. As a result, initial non-pharma-
can inherently solve complex societal issues. AI ceutical interventions such as lockdown, while
especially is increasingly seen as an all-encom- largely effective, have led among other unintended
passing solution in this regard. Such a mentality is outcomes to a global increase in mental health
often cautioned against by anthropologists. One problems and domestic violence. This is where
reason for this is that techno-solutionism shifts the blending of digital and human empathy is key.
accountability away from structural powers and Digitally innovative techniques in anthropology
technology creators, and onto the technologies or blending data-driven (Big Data) and ‘human-centric-
even their users. This shift in the burden of respon- at-scale’ (Thick Data) techniques now allow numer-
sibility means that as technological infrastructure ical and human understanding of social pathways
improves, it becomes increasingly second-nature to of things like disease transmission and barriers to
offload problem-solving from structural powers and care. These techniques could inform future prepar-
onto citizens. The current scramble for blockchain edness response plans, they might allow measure-
technologies is another example of purely techni- ment of policy effectiveness beyond numbers, and
cal/data/computational processes providing solu- they could reveal in real time previously unforeseen
tions without reference to human or environmental positive and negative consequences of government
fallout. interventions, allowing authorities to adapt policy as
circumstances change.
The overall result of techno-solutionism is the
marginalisation of the anthropological ap- proach However, while the blending of anthropological
of putting human needs at the heart of innovative and digital methods is crucial, the further that tech-
advances, thus adding to the hurdles which it must nology abstracts anthropological methods, the less
surmount in order to improve the understanding human the practice becomes. In order to deliver
of human needs around the world. For example, digitally innovative ways of helping humanity an-
during the Covid-19 pandemic, global government thropology must, at a certain point, draw a careful
responses have largely been determined by a tech- line in the sand.
no-solutionist mindset. Academics have noted the
prevalence of computational approaches to under-
standing the virus and of the overuse of biomedical
research, creating some kind of imagined ‘standard

49
Foresight
The subsequent pages explore where digi-
tal innovation might be going.
What could we see next based on early
signals of where things are going today?

50
AFFECTIVE
COMPUTING
Affective computing is the study and development learning is then able to interpret and process
of systems and devices that can recognize, these modalities. In theory, such technology
interpret, process, and simulate human affects provides the capacity to not only create data
(the instinctual reactions before the cognitive collection algorithms that have empathy built in,
formation of emotional response). The modern but also measure emotional response and human
branch of affective interaction originated from affect at scale. This could offer huge (seemingly)
Rosalind Piccard in 1995. Since then, it has become untapped innovation potential for contemporary
an interdisciplinary field exploring how technology anthropological research.
can inform an understanding of human affect, how
While we could not find any specific examples of
interactions between humans and technologies
affective computing being used for anthropological
can be impacted by affect, how systems can be
research as of yet, there are a number of examples
designed to utilize affect to enhance capabilities,
of affective computing using ethnographic insight
and how sensing and affective strategies can
to inform its systems. One such study outlines
transform human and computer interaction.
the opportunities of collaborative effort between
One of the early motivations for Affective anthropologists and engineers in creating emotional
Computing was its ability to simulate empathy. modeling practices that are “more sensitive to
Affective computing technologies are able to cultural diversity and better protected from risks
sense an emotional response in the user and of ethnic, racial, and ethnocentric bias” (White &
react accordingly. This is often achieved through Katsuno, 2019). Thus, collaboration in this liminal
collecting data like facial expression, body space appears in its early stages.
temperature and speech recognition. Machine

White, D., & Katsuno, H. (2019). Cultural Anthropology for Social Emotion Modeling: Principles of Application toward Diversified Social Signal Process-
ing. 2019 8th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACIIW), 368–373. https://doi.org/10.1109/
ACIIW.2019.8925172.

51
BUSINESS
ANTHROPOLOGY
Another iteration of applied anthropology, the anthropology has slowly developed predominantly
hybrid approach of business anthropology, blends across North America and Western Europe in the
the anthropology of business with anthropology in form of private agencies such as ReD Associates
business. This fast-evolving field is characterised (Denmark) and Kresnicka Research & Insight (USA).
by the use of anthropological constructs, theory, As is the often the case with anthropology, the
and methods to study three areas key to business: discipline goes by many names, including corporate
organizational culture, marketing & consumer anthropology and organisational anthropology.
behaviour, and design. In the process, the discipline These approaches are slowly being seen in Latin
goes beyond management consulting to deliver America and across Asia and the Pacific (fuelled by
an empathetic, reflexive and holistic remodeling of transnational corporations like Kantar). We foresee
businesses and organisations. A recent iteration of this offshoot of applied anthropology as a fuelling
the concept was presented by the Gillian Tett who ground for digital innovation. Aside from the benefit
coined the phrase “anthro-vision’ as a new way of of private funding, digital methods will prove highly
seeing life and business. useful in analysis of closed networks with easily
accessible data.
Over the last 10 or so years, this application of

ANTHROPOLOGY
ANTHROPOLOGY
OF BUSINESS
IN BUSINESS

ACADEMIC PRODUCT
RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT

MANAGEMENT
CONSULTING

McCreery, J. (2017). Business anthropology. https://www.slideshare.net/jlmccreery/business-anthropology-72068728.

52
TREND
PREDICTION
Forecasting is nothing new, but the integration of ethnographic ways of thinking into
this practice has been a growing phenomenon over the last few years. This is perhaps
unsurprising to some, as anthropologists are trained to study the present in order to
speculate on the future. However, as an ethnographic approach begins to blend with big
data, forecasting and trend prediction is becoming more and more advanced. Forward
thinking organisations, like the ones listed on this page, have been developing powerful
insight tools that can make increasingly accurate predictions based upon open-source
data (like public social media posts).

While anthropological trend prediction is happening almost exclusively in the private

sphere, we foresee that these technologies have the potential to be invaluable in the
public sphere. These innovations could be hugely influential in addressing issues like
misinformation, radicalisation, political polarity and even climate change. The potential
of this transition is perfectly modeled by Black Swan Data’s charity, White Swan, which
uses their leading technology and unique prediction analysis to improve the health and
wellbeing of society.

L’Atelier
Paris, France
Finds weak signals on the fringes of society (through its ‘Insight’
tool) and predict their emergence and growth (through ‘Foresight’
tool). Their Virtual Economy Technology Radar tracks 54 new forms
of technical advance in order to identify the big questions that will
transform the world.

Black Swan Data

London, UK
Developed Trendscope, a platform that uses an always-on data
platform to ingest real-time social media input before analysing the
data with their Trend Prediction Value algorithm.

53
CITIZEN
STORYTELLERS Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) is a situated, bottom-up
practice that takes into account local needs, practices and
culture and works with broad networks of people to design
There are some interesting and innovative examples
and build new devices and knowledge creation processes
of citizen mapping being used in anthropological that can transform the world. With an interdisciplinary
research. Tobias Bornakke, an academic from research approach, it also aims to provide a set of
Denmark, used data collected from tracking cyclists as tools that can be used by any user, regardless of their
background and level of literacy, to collect, assay and act
a means of experimental big-thick blending. Extreme
on information by using adaptable scientific methods.
Citizen Science, a UCL-based collective, teaches digital
mapping skills using accessible technology that can
be used by anybody regardless of their background
and level of literacy to collect and act on information,
thus turning citizens into the storytellers of their own
cultural environments. Digital citizen storytelling may
well be the next generation of digital ethnography at
scale and could follow on from the trend towards self-
published, user-generated content phenomenon that scientist trained anthropologists, but about
we’ve seen over the last decade (e.g. vlogs, TikTok). getting as many people as possible involved in
These methods are an important reminder that the the process of creating systems of knowledge
“digital” in digital innovation does not necessarily need that support human behaviour. Framing citizens
to be something complex like coding or computing. as storytellers essentially frames them as
In fact, it could be these accessible digital means that anthropologists themselves, in turn integrating
facilitate a growing culture of anthropology worldwide, them into a system designed to benefit them.
something that is necessary for the flattening of Such a participatory approach to digital
the practice. Innovation within anthropology is not innovation invites collaboration and can be built
necessarily about creating more highly-skilled data- upon by more advanced digital practices.

Bornakke, T., & Due, B. L. (2018). Big–Thick Blending: A method for mixing analytical insights from big and thick data sources. Big Data & Society,
5(1), 2053951718765026. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951718765026.

Tobias Bornakke’s Big-Thick Blending through Bicycle Mapping

54
SO WHAT?
The partnership between UNESCO and the LiiV Center aims to advance digital
innovation in anthropology through three areas:

1. Academic Curriculum: New open-sourced academic curriculum,

in the form of courses, certificates and research to upskill anthropologists,
data scientists, policy makers and others.

2.

Global Awareness & Talent: Global Awareness and Talent to draw
attention and demand across the public & private sector towards the ex-
pansion of this field via a global professional community.

3. Innovation & Technology Tools: New open-sourced technology

tools for anthropologists, data scientists (and others) to unleash deeper
insights into humanity.

Based on the findings of the global report, on the subsequent pages, we have
provided strategic recommendations for each category.

55
 GLOBAL
ACADEMIC INNOVATION &
AWARENESS
CURRICULUM TECHNOLOGY
& TALENT
TOOLS:
. Translate the learnings from . Develop “mixed methods” . Engage with and learn from
the liminal space into the public courses, with a focus on collectives with a collaborative
sector, an area where there is not interdisciplinarity rather than mindset to build local or global
a lot of organic digital innovation, a strictly “anthropological” communities.
but much potential for its input. approach.
. Use the advancements within
. Support the Academic to . Harness dialogue and enhance trend prediction technologies for
Private Sector Pipeline by cooperation among researchers, public good.
fostering a cultural shift towards experts and practitioners to unify
anthropological thinking, and platform global Academic . Follow the example of
especially in the Global South. Labs and Think Tanks. organisations like ExCiTes who
This will stimulate a private sector are redefining who and who
interest in these regions. . Find ways to unite the isn’t involved in anthropological
anthropological diaspora and advancement.
. Considering the unintentional create a shared space or, at the
gatekeeping that can occur within very least, a shared vocabulary. . Challenge the techno-solutionist
anthropology, exacerbated by the mindset and offer instead an
discipline’s fragmented language, . Create open-access archives of ethno-solutionist mindset.
global anthropological innovation
a focus on interdisciplinarity and
accessibility should always take and ways of knowing. . Embrace computational science
through affective computing.
precedence.
. Build open-access ‘Intro to
. Use locally targeted problem anthropology’ courses, teaching . Fund technologies developed by
Intro to Anthro globally at the teams of anthropologists and
solving to spur digital innovation.
high school level, supported by data scientists.
Reframe anthropology as
activism. YouTube channels and podcasts

. Remain conscious of digital . Educate a new generation of

divide. Creating global digital researchers who are born out of
innovation in anthropology the liminal innovation space.
should not look like exporting
complex digital methodologies
. Facilitate and encourage
anthropologists who are
from the global north to the
“returning the gaze”
global south, it should look like
bottom-up, scalable approaches
that address local needs and
make use of the digital tools
available.

. Re-center community agency in

research. Present anthropological
thinking as a means of
continuous engagement, rather
than a purely extractive process.

56
CONCLUDING
REMARKS
It is clear that digital innovation in anthropology is in the beginning stages of a very exciting journey.
Likewise, individuals and organisations across the world and across sectors are realising its necessity in
understanding and protecting what it means, and will mean, to be human in our increasingly digitised
world. The liminal spaces between disciplines and sectors are evidently the hotbeds of digital innovation.
However, it is also evident that innovation remains skewed towards the global north. Therefore, we
recognise a wider cultural shift that needs to be facilitated. How can we encourage diverse groups to
value and incorporate anthropological thinking into existing systems of knowledge without replicating the
discipline’s past patterns? Is it through avoiding the word “anthropology” altogether?

Here we can learn from UNESCO’s Lifelong anthropology as something that is not a foreign
Learning Scheme, which does not solely focus concept being taught, but a process of observation,
on developing new skills but just as much on empathy and storytelling that is inherently human,
recognizing underestimated, invisible and we can recognise and empower local knowledge in
unexpected ones. The scheme is “creating a global the process.
culture of lifelong learning (which) will be key to This being said, we’d like to leave readers of
addressing the challenges faced by humanity, this report with an appropriately anthropological
from the climate crisis to technological and question to keep in mind when moving forward
demographic change, not to mention those posed with the information provided here: ‘Who is digital
by the COVID-19 pandemic and the inequalities innovation in anthropology for and what kind of
it has exacerbated.” Perhaps then, by framing world is it building?

UNESCO (2020). “Embracing a culture of lifelong learning” https://www.uil.unesco.org/en/embracing-culture-lifelong-learning

57
GLOSSARY
Big Data: information automatically and passively Holism: the belief that specific behaviours of any
collected from various digital interactions, char- group/society should not be considered in isolation
acterised by large volume, wide variety and high and that the broadest interplay of such elements
speed. should be understood.

Cultural Relativism: the principle that all societies Netnography: Similar to digital ethnography,
and social groupings consist of complex relation- netnography focuses solely on online fieldsites.
ships, power structures etc., making them equally Methods often draw upon more computational
worthy of anthropological consideration. approaches such as data-scraping.

Data Mining: the process of discovering actionable Participant Observation: the practice by which
information from large sets of data. anthropologists understand a subject group by be-
Digital Ethnography: Using digital research methods ing with them as part of their group over time, as a
to study digital and non-digital behaviours, cultures participatory guest rather than as a fly on the wall.
and communities. Thick Data: complex qualitative information on
Ethnography: the collection and presentation of a subject group, traditionally obtained through
information about a subject group, traditionally ethnography but now increasingly through pur-
garnered through techniques such as Participant pose-built software, revealing contexts, emotions,
Observation. intimacies and vulnerabilities of their lived experi-
ences.
GIS: (Geographic Information System): software
which manages, analyses and visualises geographi- Web scraping: automated extraction of data from
cal data. websites to a central database for analysis.

58
WHO WROTE
THIS REPORT?
Isabelle Cotton is a digital anthropologist and social researcher based in-between London
and Amsterdam. She first studied digital anthropology at Amsterdam University College in 2014 and was
immediately inspired by the seminal works of Danah Boyd. After completing her MSc in Digital Anthropology
at UCL, she has worked as a digital ethnographer at IPSOS Ethnography, a digital research executive at RONIN
and a Senior Research Manager at Word On The Curb (UK). During this time, Isabelle also worked as a freelance
digital anthropologist and consultant, as well as co-founding Digital Behaviour Lab. Across her career, she has
worked with clients like the BBC, Spotify, the NHS, Adidas and Ben & Jerry’s.

Co-founder Simon Darragh (MSc Digital Anthropology) was educated in London, New York and
Manchester before working for many years in SMEs and major corporations in cross-border and cross-cultural
business roles, most notably as Head of International Advertising at the Guardian in London. He synergised his
curiosity about the diversity of peoples and behaviours he had witnessed around the globe, and his fascination
with the world of work, by undertaking an MSc in Digital Anthropology at UCL, graduating in 2020 with Merit.
Now focussed on creating a fairer and more empathetic world of work as co-founder of Digital Behaviour Lab, a
digital research company which uncovers the deep picture of the lived human experience at work and develops
understanding through people, not just data.

Digital Behaviour Lab is a digital business research

agency that brings together academic, digital and
applied anthropology.

59
 REGIONAL
REPORT
CONTRIBUTORS

Shriram Venkatraman
DIAS Fellow and Assistant Professor,
University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Denise Camou
Sociologist | UX Researcher |
MSc in Design Thinking | MSc CSR
Montevideo, Uruguay

Marguerite Coetzee
Anthropologist | Artist | Futurist
Cape Town, South Africa

60